Paranormal Boredom

It’s always a downer filled with bummer when a popular horror movie franchise milks itself dry with too many and/or unnecessary sequels. While I could cite dozens of examples (I’m looking in your direction Friday the 13th), I’m pointing my annoyance gun at Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, the latest in the otherwise profitable Paranormal Activity series, due to underwhelm us on January 3, 2014.

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a spin-off that has no story line relation to its parent movie and cinematic siblings. This garners a big SO WHAT. Yeah, I haven’t seen it, but I took a look at the trailer, which indicates the movie is a made-on-the-cheap handheld camera dizzyfest that trots out the same kind of low-grade ghost effects we’ve seen in all the other PA movies.

The plot: “The film takes place in a Hispanic community in Southern California, where a group of teenagers must deal with a demonic spirit that is becoming increasingly violent. After being ‘marked,’ Jesse is pursued by mysterious forces while his family and friends try to save him.”

Same movie, different ethnic backdrop. Yawn.

To further reaffirm The Marked Ones’ cut ’n paste business model, they even went so far as to rip off the symbol from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pts. 1 & 2. (2010/2011). The circle within a triangle with a vertical line through it represents the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility, all of which can be found on Craigslist™. The Marked Ones shamelessly parades the same symbol around like a Blair Witch stick figure talisman, which was stolen from Pearl Jam.

I’ll pass on Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones and surf Craigslist™ to find a Cloak of Invisibility that covers my bikini zone.

Every Home Needs A Leviathan

Call me open-minded, but I’m really beginning to dig all these fan films being made by dedicated fanaticism, which I think the word “fan” is derived from.

These are hardcore examinations of a fan’s die-hard love of a particular horror movie and/or book, two excellent recent ones being the meticulous Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary and the freakishly brilliant Room 237, a visual college course on The Shining and its producer/director, Stanley Kubrick. (Your jaw will hit some sort of floor in shock and awe when you see this thing.)

Now comes Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II, a feature length documentary uncovering the history, making of and unknown details of the making of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) films. I’m pregnant with excitement as Hellraiser is one of my all-time favorite romance movies.

Here’s what we get when Leviathan arrives sometime in 2014: “Following the story of the films from their inception through production to release and the their subsequent lives and growing fan base, we aim to show fans and those less familiar with the films both the technical skills, the creative idea, the symbolism and the legacy of these movies. We’ll be telling the story of Clive Barker’s journey of making them and how close they came to his vision at the time and how he feels about them over 25 years later.”

Hellraiser gave birth to one of the horror genre’s more iconic figures in Pinhead, the gangsta leader of the otherworldly Cenobites, what with his entire hairless head studded with nails pounded halfway in. He looks like a highly f’d up version of a Pachinko arcade game, but with slightly more flesh-ripping.

I don’t know what kind of nails they were, so I’m hoping Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II will clear that up for me.

Pirate Zombies

Zombie pirates or, “pirate zombies,” are not exactly new to the horror genre. If what few remaining brain cells serve me correctly (and why wouldn’t they – I let them live), a recent example would be the cursed pirate zombies in the ba-jillion dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Then there was Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter’s Cove (2005), which featured a ghost pirate zombie. There were more, but like I said, limited brain cell resources.

So Zombie Pirates, releasing January 21, 2014, carries on in the fine tradition of swashbuckling, swording, stabbing and, presumably, a treasure chest full of flesh-eating.

What to expect: “A dangerous young woman offers up human sacrifices to a ghost ship of the dead in return for an ancient treasure. When she comes up one sacrifice short, her zombie masters exact their bloody revenge in this gory tribute to Spain’s popular Blind Dead Euro Horror series.”

A little obscure reference, but the Blind Dead series is an excellent inspirational source, i.e., Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971), Return of the Blind Dead (1973), The Ghost Galleon (1974), Night of the Seagulls (1975). In fact, I pattern my own moral stance on seagulls.

So we’re promised a dangerous young woman, human sacrifice, a ghost ship that may or may not have proper running lights, taxable ancient treasure, zombie masters (i.e., Republicans) and gory bloody revenge, the best kind of all reprisals.

P.S. Seagulls rock.

Volcano Zombies

On the surface, the upcoming Volcano Zombies (2014) sounds like a reasonable excuse for me to lay on the couch in a perpendicular manner for 90 minutes or so.

Then I started over thinking it.

Before I goon out, here’s the plot: “A sheriff must help an estranged family evacuate before a volcano erupts, at the same time fighting off a horde of lava-filled zombies brought to life by the cursed mountain.”

Too many questions…

• Why was the family estranged?

• What does “estranged” mean?

• Why does a sheriff have to help out? Why can’t a motorcycle cop or a detective?

• Why was everyone living so close to a live volcano as to be needing evacuating?

• Why is volcano cursed?

• Who cursed it? Does he/she/it have a vendetta against all things pyroclastic flow?

As for the lava-filled zombies, I’m OK with that. I already parked my brain at the door when I read that part, so all good here.

Sharp Dressed Werewolf

After a car crash leaves Duncan unable to order one more drink, two “doctors” fix him up with a shot of werewolf juice. I tried finding a liquor store that carried said beverage, but was unsuccessful. It’s just not fair.

Duncan, though, loses his memory and escapes, only to end up in a bar in a small mountain town. Completely distraught, he wanders the streets, only to be mugged by someone needing a drink more than him. (It wasn’t me, I swear.)

Alas, the criminal bit off more than he could chew because Duncan wolfs up and rips the bad guy’s neck off. Now Duncan has bit off more than he can chew. Heh.

Since it’s a mountain town, there’s snow. And where’s there’s snow there’s trackable tracks. But what the hey – the trackings go from stylish shoes to…wolf shoes! Only two of ’em, which indicates the suspect was walking upright. (Whew – that lets me off the hook.)

Duncan, coming out of it and freezing his exterior off, makes his way back into town and visits the local doctor who wants to calm him down by hooking him up with some sweet meds. Not a chance – Duncan’s paranoia is nearing meltdown, so he runs back out into the woods. By now everyone knows Hairy D is behind the attacks and a posse (or “Texas mosh pit”) is called into action.

He’s not hard to find because he’s wearing a suit. How many werewolves in the woods wear off the rack Brooks Brothers™? Heck, it’s just a process of elimination at that point. The sight of Duncan running away from the cops with his tie flapping in the wind is outright awesome.

That the lighting in The Werewolf (1956) changes from night to day – often in the same scene – and the fact there’s snow, then not, shouldn’t keep you from watching this nearly 60 year-old camp horror classic. And if you know a store where I can find some werewolf juice, don’t be a dick and not tell me, ’k?

Werewolf Bones

An Arizona archaeological dig using minimum-wage help unearths the skeleton of the Yetiglanchi, or “werewolf.” A worker gets scratched on established bones and slowly turns into a Yetiglanchi himself. No chick in a bar is ever gonna believe that’s your real name when you try and hit on ’em.

Later, a security guard where the bones are being kept out in the open, is infected and he transforms into a werewolf – while driving his car. Having not seen a werewolf drive a car before, I was duly entertained. Too bad werewolves can’t drive worth a ding dong; He never used his blinker once before the exploding crash that took his short-lived hair-filled life.

A smooth city writer shows up to report on this deal. The supermodel lab assistant, with flaming red hair and heaving bosom, are attracted to each other like goats. Yuri, the doctor’s bully punch dispenser, uses the werewolf skull to beat on the writer, wounding and infecting him in the process. The writer becomes the written.

He’s now a living a barber’s nightmare from which there is no return. All he has to do is break the news to his new girlfriend. But not before shredding Yuri into shreds. (Yuri, it should be noted, is such a supreme a**hole d*ck pr*ck, he deserves to be shredded into parade confetti.)

You’d expect a movie called Werewolf (1996, aka, Arizona Werewolf) to end on a happy note. But this one is just plain confusing, with werewolf writer and his girlfriend, now growing facial hair, looking at the camera and smiling. Excuse me, but werewolves aren’t supposed to smile. They grimace. This just ruined everything because it just wasn’t believable.

Modern Ghost Town

One metaphoric minute the citizens of Detroit were there, the next all their clothes and valuables were all that remained on the dirty ground. Cool special effect – I bet it cost them hundreds to pull off.

A few survivors band together and discover that the shadows are really shadow creature things that swallow you whole/you hole. This is indicated by whispering and eerie hand shadow puppets. Again, I’m wondering how they were able to afford that special effect.

The trick to surviving is to stay in the light. Not easy to do when the power is dwindling. The plan is to get out of the city where hopefully the sun shines 24 hours a day.

That’s about it. Vanishing on 7th Street (2011) has no free-range blood, a few curse words (and not very colorful ones), some screaming, and those budget-busting special effects.

I bet everyone is over on 8th Street having a wild party.

Dirt-y Horror

Something ate an entire Indian tribe 500 years ago. And it’s highly doubtful whatever did it flossed its teeth afterward. But that something has just been “unearthed” and is hungry again.

Way out in the desert an archaeologist with a tattooed face is tracking this “thing.” The town’s sheriff is a supermodel brunette whose drinking herself into the dirt because of an f’d up bust that resulted in a little girl’s death. And another supermodel Native American is a scientist who, with the help of a microscope, determines that the DNA of this “thing” has been eating people, plants and animals since the Jurassic Park days (the point in time, not the movie).

When the monster shows itself it’s a near photocopy of the Alien. Are there no other monster ideas out there? Movie makers are more than welcome to use me as an example after a night of drinking myself into the dirt.

Guns don’t stop that thing, but uranium might. Good thing in that really small desert town they have equipment handy to extract the radioactive ore, distill it, put it in a syringe and get close enough to the monster to inject it.

Most of the action in Unearthed (2007) is done in the dark and you can’t see who’s getting their guts opened for public display. This was probably to keep the creature from being seen in its plagiaristic glory so you’d watch the rest of the movie. But hey, if you wanna waste 93 minutes, that’s your call.

Halloween – Just In Time For Christmas

Decidedly evil (though recently deceased) rock star Sammi Curr speaks to a dysfunctional headbanger teen by means of your ordinary, run-of-the-mill back-masked heavy metal record. (Note to those who don’t know what a record album is: It’s like a plastic MP3 but with credits.)

Being dead, however, doesn’t keep hammy Sammi from playing a Halloween concert at the high school he graduated from for some Carrie-esque styled revenge in 1986’s blackened Trick or Treat.

Sammi looks like Poison’s CC Deville, who looks like Phyllis Diller, but with more crack, alcohol and eyeliner. KISS’ Gene Simmons makes a cameo as does Ozzy Osbourne playing a preacher, denouncing heavy metal. (Note to organized religion: You’ve been punked.)

Titanic Failure

Here’s a good idea: rebuild the chill-fated Titanic to spec, loudly proclaim nothing can sink it, then go on an ocean cruise that traces the original Titanic’s scenic route near whale-sized icebergs. That totally sounds like something I’d do while under the guidance of Budweiser™.

Thanks to global warming, glaciers are splitting off in Greenland and headed straight for cocktails in America. An incoming tsunami  that apparently no one saw coming throws the ice chunks right at U.S.S. Screwed Yet Again.

The rest of the movie has everyone trying to saves themselves, though I don’t know why. It’s not like they can realistically do a sequel with me as its star who saves everyone and gets all the chicks at the end.

The interior shots of this “state of the art” cruise liner has people going into the hold that looks like a ratty warehouse with peeling paint and leaking pipes. But then, that was the predestined fate of Titanic II (2010) – to boldly sink to new depths.